<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Change of Routines by quiet_crisis_in_the_corner</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28226517">Change of Routines</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiet_crisis_in_the_corner/pseuds/quiet_crisis_in_the_corner'>quiet_crisis_in_the_corner</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Ghosts (TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Autistic Captain, Autistic OC, F/M, Gen, Light Angst, Mentions of Ableism, Mike is adorable, Morse Code, alison is the best ally, alison learning about autism, baby Martin Crieff at the end, change of routines, christmas but only a bit, first fic, i love these babies so much, julian is himself, mentions of ableist slurs</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:48:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,110</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28226517</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiet_crisis_in_the_corner/pseuds/quiet_crisis_in_the_corner</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After a year of living with the ghosts, Alison had begun to think of them as her rather eccentric roommates, and even (in some cases) her friends. She’d begun to notice small things about them, too - things that made her smile, things that annoyed her and sometimes things she decided she just didn’t want to know about.<br/>But some ghosts had more interesting (and more puzzling) quirks - things that seemed strange on their own, but, when put together, made a big picture that could actually end up explaining a lot. </p><p>The Captain, for example.</p><p>(Basically, Alison wonders whether the Captain's 'quirks' are more than just quirks, and wants to help him figure out how. Am I projecting? just a little)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alison/Mike (Ghosts TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>107</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Signs, not Symptoms</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hi guys! This is my first ever fic for any fandom oop, hope it goes OK :P I, and many others, headcanon the Captain to be autistic. Am I projecting? Just a little bit (OK a lot). I may have borrowed some things from other fics without realising - don’t forget to check out all Autistic!Captain tags for the reads alone, I swear this fandom is the best :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>After a year of living with the ghosts, Alison had begun to think of them as her rather eccentric roommates, and even (in some cases) her friends. She’d begun to notice small things about them, too - things that made her smile, things that annoyed her and sometimes things she decided she just didn’t want to know about. </p><p>For example, Pat had a habit of singing the chorus of a song if the name came up in conversation. One time, she’d had it up to *here* with Julian’s… well, with Julian, and began a warning ‘Don’t-’ and Pat had quietly interrupted with ‘Don’t - leave me this way…’</p><p>Other ghosts had more subtle quirks, for more obvious reasons. Julian would pretend not to be interested if any of his… more scandalous moments were mentioned (unless he brought them up himself), but she could see his nose twitching. Fanny would go all soft at the mention of children. Mary didn’t like toast, but loved butter. A lot. And Thomas only danced when he knew Alison was watching.</p><p>But some ghosts had more interesting (and more puzzling) quirks - things that seemed strange on their own, but, when put together, made a big picture which could actually end up explaining a lot. </p><p>The Captain, for example. </p><p>Alison noticed how he reacted to small things, things which wouldn’t bother the other ghosts but caused him some distress she didn’t quite understand. If there was a loud and unexpected noise, he would tense up and put his hands over his ears. If there was too much chatter in a room, he’d leave or try to quieten things down a bit. Crowded rooms seemed to make him nervous, and he didn’t seem to mind being apart from all the action - sometimes he preferred it. He was quite happy to do his own thing.</p><p>He also never made eye contact. If a subject was troubling, he’d look at the ground or ‘inspect their uniforms’, as Alison had come to label his intense scrutiny of their clothes. She could only assume it was to do with avoiding the eyes, and not for attraction reasons - he never seemed to linger on the ‘bosom area’. (Why that might be, most modern ghosts had an inkling…)</p><p>The Captain was a stickler for routine, for example, his daily patrol and timed run. He had an obsessive need to see the tanks programme, and seemed to enjoy studying the TV schedule to work out when it was on. If something interrupted his schedule (rats chewing through the power cable again, or Alison and Mike’s bi-monthly private "alive-people only" film night) he’d pretend not to be upset, but she could see him biting his lip and rubbing his swagger stick. If she apologised, he sometimes wouldn’t hear her, or would repeat bits of her sentence. It made her upset to see him upset, but she couldn’t see a conceivable cause and didn’t want to push him away completely.</p><p>That was another thing. The repeating. Alison had often caught the Captain quietly singing ‘I am the very model of a modern major general’, particularly so if things seemed to… get a bit much. And if there was an upset, he might repeat the other ghost’s outcries. As with all other quirks, he didn’t seem to be aware he was doing this, and she didn’t know if the others had noticed, too.</p><p>One day, Alison had woken up early (that bloody pigeon!) and couldn’t get back to sleep, so she’d gone into the kitchen for a snack. On the way, she’d heard a humming noise, and had stuck her head through the window. There she saw the Captain, sitting with his back against the wall, hands over his knees, rocking backwards and forwards and mumbling quietly. She’d wanted to ask if he was all right, but she recognised from past occurrences that this would only frighten him off. She did want to connect with the man. Of all the ghosts, he seemed to be the one who absolutely did not want to open up. He wouldn’t tell anyone his name, and he revealed almost nothing about his personal life, whereas the others (ESPECIALLY Julian) shared far too much. </p><p>Mike was always there for her, and sometimes Alison wished he could see the ghosts and help her out a bit. (But she quickly retracted that wish, for the sake of his sanity and their marriage). Sometimes, when she was very frustrated by them (‘WHY does he INSIST on not wearing pants? And why is she always THERE? I swear, the amount of times people have thought they were having a stroke because a certain Someone "makes folk smells burnings"…’) she offloaded onto him. Mike was a very good listener, and although she knew he could never fully understand, he tried his best. She loved him for lots of things, and she loved him for that. </p><p>It was night time, and Alison was telling him about the Captain’s little quirks - how she wished she could understand what was going on - when Mike suddenly sat up in bed. He turned to face her with a ‘I’ve just connected some dots’ expression on his face.</p><p>‘Ali, you know Yasmin, right?’</p><p>Alison had a vague memory of Mike’s niece when she’d met her last Christmas - a shy girl with neat cornrow braids who always wore headphones.</p><p>‘Yeah. Very quiet, isn’t she?’</p><p>Mike smiled at the memory. He really enjoyed time spent with family, Alison thought. Shame they didn’t get to see each other a lot.</p><p>‘She’s great, our Minnie. Well, I was just thinking, and I realised something. Lots of stuff that Minnie finds hard, it sounds like the Captain does as well.’</p><p>Come to think of it, Alison did remember Minnie flinching at loud noises, flicking her fingers together and humming tunes randomly - all activities she’d observed in Captain, here at Button House.</p><p>‘Oohhhh. Yeah, I get what you mean.’</p><p>‘You know that Minnie’s autistic, right? From the sound of it, our ghost here might be too.’</p><p>Alison didn’t really know much about autism. She’d heard it described as a disease or developmental disorder, and had heard horror stories about kids kicking their parents or never speaking. She’d caught 'Rain man' on the TV once, but it didn’t make a lot of sense. Minnie didn’t seem to fit any of those stereotypes. She was shy, and never made eye contact, but she loved to play games on Alison’s phone and they’d had lots of fun challenging each other. She flinched at loud noises and didn’t like to be touched without warning, but she was very gentle with dogs. Mike often joked she was a dog whisperer, and Minnie had laughed and pretended to whisper secrets into the ear of her parent’s dog, Kerfuffle. </p><p>To see the Captain and Minnie as autistic would be, according to mainstream media, to see something wrong with them. But Alison actually preferred them to a lot of other company. They were both empathetic and usually had good solutions to tricky problems. They were good company and anything they found hard could be pretty easily managed. So maybe this autism thing was worth looking into.</p><p>The next morning, Alison woke up early and googled ‘signs of autism’. (She wanted to search for ‘signs of autism in repressed ww2 ghost men’ but that would be too specific.) Surprisingly, the more she read about autism, the more she understood her friend, especially articles and posts written by autistic people. </p><p>Rubbing his hands over the swagger stick, rocking backwards and forwards and humming? That was stimming, a form of self-soothing as a response to stress.</p><p>Sensitivity to loud noises? That was issues with sensory processing, because of increased sensitivity and discomfort to ordinary stimuli.</p><p>Repeating stuff, or going very quiet? That could be echolalia.</p><p>Needing alone time? That was… well, that was very understandable, considering their situation. But the way some autistic people described this need for space was as if their ‘social battery was going low’, or  they were ‘running out of spoons’, and needed a quiet place to be themselves in private until they felt better.</p><p>Alison wasn’t entirely sure what everything meant, but the articles and stories she found did make her convinced the Captain was autistic. Then, she googled ‘autism in the past’ to understand what he might have been through, and, boy, was she in for a shock.</p><p>No wonder the Captain was so repressed, if this was the way people treated him just for having a different (and brilliant) brain. Reading about Hans Asperger made her physically sick. So did ABA therapy (still going on today), ‘refrigerator mother syndrome’, compulsory sterilisation, and all the ableism autistic people in the 20th century face on a daily basis. It was a real education for her, and thinking of all the misconceptions in the media, she wasn’t surprised.</p><p>The sound of a throat being cleared, directly behind her, snapped her out of her research.</p><p>Alison jumped out of her skin, placing a hand on her chest and looking around to see who had disturbed her. It was the Captain.</p><p>‘Oh, it’s you, Cap! You frightened me. Can I help you with anything?’</p><p>He shuffled awkwardly. Noticing his face, Alison could sense something wasn’t right.</p><p>‘You’ve forgotten to time my my daily run.’</p><p>After what Alison had been reading, she realised what this change in routine must have meant for him. A big disruption could cause severe distress - and it was all her fault.</p><p>‘Captain - I’m so sorry, I really am. That was unforgivable of me. How can I make it up to you?’</p><p>He looked at her for a minute.</p><p>‘Um, there’s nothing to make up - that is to say, everything’s fine, just letting you know.’</p><p>He turned to walk away, but Alison noticed his jaw was clenched and he still looked very upset, even though he was trying to hide it.</p><p>‘Captain, wait. Today’s Wednesday, right? And it’s the first Wednesday of December, isn’t it?’</p><p>He looked at her, confused.</p><p>‘Well, yes, but I don’t see what this has to do with anything.’</p><p>‘How about, the first Wednesday of every month, I time your running at a different time than usual? But every other day in the month is exactly the same.’</p><p>Was she mistaken, or did the Captain’s jaw unclench as he considered the option? He seemed to breathe in and out more deeply.</p><p>‘Yes. I mean, maybe that would be more agreeable. Say, thirteen hundred hours. That gives you an hour.’</p><p>As he walked away, Alison smiled. She felt like she'd helped him in some small way, and that made her feel good.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I'm autistic myself, but not everyone is. I thought I'd try and take this fic from an outsider's perspective, because it's hard to know what to do if you don't know a lot about supporting neurodivergent people &lt;3 hope it wasn't too heavy-handed</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Connecting the Dots (and dashes)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Armed with her new knowledge, Alison makes a list of changes to make life easier for the Captain. This has a number of surprising consequences.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Without wanting to interfere too much in the Captain’s life, Alison resolved to find strategies to help him deal with the things he had trouble with. One problem with this was that she had no idea how to start, or even if the Captain would want to be helped. And she had the other ghosts to ‘monitor’. Sometimes it felt like Alison was in charge of some sort of well-furnished, crumbling prison, except the so-called inmates could pop up and disturb you at literally any moment, literally anywhere. Even on the toilet. </p>
<p>She decided to begin by listing small changes to be made in her notebook. Well, actually it was a kid’s diary with a lock that she’d bought in a hurry from the nearest Paperchase. Despite being a nauseating pink with large, fluffy butterflies embossing the plush cover and coming with a pom-pom pen, it contained hastily scribbled entries such as ‘plan to distract the ghosts so we can have some private sexy time (yes I can see you reading this mike, talk to me later, kitty i know you can’t read my writing but for the love of god can you FUCK OFF)’.</p>
<p>The diary had a rudimentary code system (hastily implemented after a certain incident involving a trouser-less Tory), based on a series of dots and dashes. Well, it was morse code. Even though Alison was aware that Pat and the Captain knew morse code, she’d decided it was safe for two reasons. Firstly, neither had the powers to extract the diary from its hiding place in the library bookshelves, and certainly not to turn the plastic lock or the fiddly pages. Secondly, Pat would never dream of reading something private, especially not if it was in code, and the Captain would probably be put off by its fluffy pink design and her very messy handwriting.<br/>So morse code it was.</p>
<p>The list began:</p>
<p>Make stuff more comfy for the Captain</p>
<p>1. Lights off at exactly 8pm and on at 8am mon to fri because he likes routines</p>
<p>2. Talk to robin about the lights thing because i can’t take any more of this shit and the captain hates the flickering</p>
<p>3. Make a room that he can’t hear the other ghosts from and tell them not to use it (will this work? no but worth a try)</p>
<p>4. Buy whiteboard and pen and write down the day’s plan if there are guests so Cap knows what to avoid/join in (prefer a chalkboard for the <br/>a e s t h e t i c but no-one can stand the noise)</p>
<p>5. Record missed tanks programmes/buy dvd</p>
<p>6. Get a solitaire board because they’re fun and it’s a good distraction from sensory overloads</p>
<p>7. Maybe just ASK him what to do </p>
<p>8. Ban all noisy music from the builders</p>
<p>9. Ask the other ghosts to be patient and not crowd him when stressed (when? would this make things worse?)</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She added to it over a number of weeks, noticing how he reacted to the changes each time. </p>
<p>The lights issue was a battle (neither her nor Mike wanted to get up before they absolutely had to, and Julian sometimes turned the fusebox off for laughs, and is it worth even counting Robin?) but eventually they sorted out a timetable, and in the end it actually worked rather well for all the household. A definitive start and end to the day made the endless tedium of the afterlife seem slightly more purposeful, and ensured Mike and Alison had some time when they were not to be disturbed.</p>
<p>It turned out the Captain’s room was the perfect place to be away from all the noise. That was probably why he’d chosen it.</p>
<p>The whiteboard was actually a great success - too much so. It turned out it wasn’t only the Captain who needed structure if there were going to be unexpected occurrences. Alison made a grid of days of the week and times of the day, and used different colour pens to mark different activities. The problem was the other ghosts and their incessant demands for it to be updated.<br/>Mary wanted to know when there would be rice krispies and butter delivered so she could stare at it. Julian wanted all the dates and names of the horses for each race. Kitty wanted to know about sleepovers, and demanded one written in for every day of the week, with a different ghost/alive person (Alison). All of these demands created a situation only solved through sheer diplomacy (moving the whiteboard to a place where only Cap could see it, then buying a chalkboard which nobody wanted her to use because of the horrible noise and the breaking of chalk).</p>
<p>The tanks programme was another success, and the Captain would grab Alison to record it when he knew there would be a disruption. The solitaire board was perfect, especially when she placed it just outside his room and created ‘solitaire time’ - if he was feeling stressed, he’d grab Alison and ‘play’ solitaire (her moving the balls for him) until everything was back to normal. She actually had multiple goes herself when she was frustrated - the little board and smooth wooden balls worked wonders.</p>
<p>Everything was going SO well, in fact, that there was bound to be something to go wrong. .</p>
<p>It was 8.00 in the morning and Alison had just turned the bathroom lights on, when she noticed the Captain pacing up and down the rickety corridor. He seemed very agitated, so she asked herself what she could do to help. She decided to step out of the bathroom so he could see her, and ask if he was all right. He did not stop pacing. Instead of the usual tight control over his facial expression, she saw eyes flashing with anger.</p>
<p>‘No. Everything is not all right. I demand to know why you are talking about me behind my back in morse code, which only I can understand.’ </p>
<p>Alison stopped dead and whispered ‘oh no.’</p>
<p>Every night, the couple would go over their plans for the next day. Last night, Alison and Mike had been practicing listening to morse code, so they could both tap out and understand the messages. They had decided to practice with the Captain’s list, Alison tapping out each idea and Mike trying to understand what the words meant. It was very tricky, so they'd gone over each sentence many times.<br/>Of course the Captain had heard her. Of course.</p>
<p>‘Captain, it’s not what it looks like, I promise - we were just trying to help you -’</p>
<p>He didn’t stop pacing. When he spoke, she could hear his voice crack a little.</p>
<p>‘Just trying to help. Not what it looks like. Help. I don’t need help.’</p>
<p>Alison decided to leave him be, until she had planned what to say to him. She gently pushed past to her room, with a sinking feelin in her stomach. How had she messed everything up in such a short space of time?</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hi guys :) thanks again for your lovely comments and kudos on the first chapter - i am still *shooketh* that people are actually reading my fic. It means a lot to me so thanks once again, you lovely people &lt;3<br/>Me and my friends are actually learning morse code, because it's very useful. I use an app to learn, but writing out and listening to messages really helps. Maybe I'll put in some morse code next chapter? who knows</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. ._././.../_ _ _/._../..._/./.../</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The Captain decides to open up about his past experiences (and so does Alison.)</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Captain had been in his room all day (except for his timed run), and Alison felt awful. She’d made him feel different from the others, which, as she well knew, was a horrible feeling. Alison had taken measures that, while they were an attempt to help, were not approved beforehand. What if the Captain never spoke to her again? What if she had ruined the afterlife for him? </p><p>She offloaded this all onto Mike, yet again feeling bad for involving him in conflicts that impacted him in no way whatsoever. Of course, he didn’t view it that way. That was Mike - always ready to help. </p><p>‘Ali, look at me.’</p><p>He snapped his fingers, and she tried to focus.</p><p>‘You were just trying to help, and you should tell him that.’</p><p>‘But it might make things worse -’</p><p>‘You said it yourself - he has trouble understanding social cues. If you explain that you’d noticed him upset by certain things, and had done some research, and -’</p><p>‘Mike, I shouldn’t have to tell him that he’s autistic! He probably knows, and has had people tell him there’s something wrong with him all his life!’</p><p>Mike sighed. </p><p>‘Well, then, maybe he should meet Yasmin. She can help him understand that labels aren’t negative unless people choose to make them that way. You know, she was bullied for 2 years, so badly that they had to change her school. But now she gets learning support and Kerfuffle can come to classes and doctor’s appointments with her. People are actually really accommodating, it’s great to see. She’s definitely not the only autistic kid there.’</p><p>Alison was considering asking if Minnie could see ghosts, but decided to sleep on it. It had been a long day.</p><p>When Alison woke up to turn on the lights, she saw a familiar figure waiting for her by the front door. It was Pat. He looked a bit awkward, standing there, and she wondered what he wanted. </p><p>‘Hullo, Alison, er, I mean, good morning - er -’</p><p>‘What’s happened now, Pat?’</p><p>She sighed, knowing this would ruin her day.</p><p>‘Er - well - nothing, well, I don’t know if anything’s happened, but the Captain says he wants to see you in his room, if you don’t mind, anytime you like, no bother.’</p><p>With that, he scuttled off to the kitchen, relieved to be out of what he probably presumed was a conflict.</p><p>Alison realised the Captain probably wanted to go over why she thought he’d needed help, so she brought her notebook with her.</p><p>She knocked on his door, feeling anxious but also relieved that he’d decided to make the first step. When she came in, he was sitting on his bed. He had a carefully neutral expression on his face, a sign she recognised as a form of ‘masking’ - when neurodivergent people know their natural response to something will be perceived as disruptive, they ‘mask’ to be accepted by neurotypicals.</p><p>He rose to greet her, and she motioned if she could sit on the bed. They both sat down, feeling a little awkward. </p><p>The Captain didn’t seem to want to speak, so she decided to go first.</p><p>‘Is this about the list?’</p><p>He nodded, still not speaking.</p><p>‘Would you like me to explain why I did it?’</p><p>He seemed like he wanted to say something, but decided against it. She could tell he was struggling with emotions she had caused, and resolved to make things better.</p><p>‘I notice lots of things about you guys. You know how Pat likes to interrupt people with songs?’</p><p>He nodded, and she could see his feet tapping.</p><p>‘Well, I notice that sometimes you don’t like loud noises, and you hum a bit, and you sometimes prefer to be in your room than with the other ghosts. Which is fair enough - so do I.’</p><p>He still wasn’t looking at her. Did he feel like he had done something wrong?</p><p>‘There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being different, Cap. I was born with tongue-tie, which means my tongue was connected to the bottom of my mouth. I couldn’t say my r’s, and I couldn’t swallow very well.</p><p>‘The other kids would tease me about it, but I thought I sounded cute. I’d say things like ‘look, mummy, wuby the wabbit is wunning awound!’ </p><p>She could tell the Captain was listening, so she kept going.</p><p>‘My mum talked to the teachers, and they did some things for me. They decided I didn’t need to read out loud in class, or perform in the school play. And I could bring in my own food, or go home for lunch. I lived really close so it was fine. </p><p>‘The bullying didn’t stop, but I felt a lot happier. My friends didn’t mind, they actually thought I was well lucky! And I wasn’t alone in having speech problems.</p><p>‘It was only when I had to have surgery for something else that the doctors decided they should get rid of my tongue-tie. I kind of miss it, actually.’</p><p>He spoke for the first time.</p><p>‘What’s your point?’</p><p>Alison looked at him.</p><p>‘I’m saying that I was trying to be like my teachers. I was trying to help you, by removing some of the things that made you upset and adding things to help you feel more comfortable. </p><p>‘I’m really sorry, Cap. I should have talked about it with you first, or just let you do your own thing. I’m not a teacher. You're not a kid.’</p><p>He shook his head, and she felt a bit better. She was about to leave, when he said,</p><p>‘My mother always told me - being different was bad. So I try to - be more like other people. It doesn’t work, though.’</p><p>Alison sat back down. She waited to see if he would say anything else. This must be really difficult for the Captain, and she felt really lucky he trusted her enough to open up.</p><p> </p><p>‘It’s nice that - that you don’t mind. I got scared that you would - tell the others. I really like the changes. Thank you.’</p><p>With that, his posture relaxed a bit. Alison wanted to hug him, although this was unwise for obvious reasons.</p><p>‘Do you want to talk about any other things I can change for you?’</p><p>He nodded, and then shook his head.</p><p>‘Not now. At - nineteen-hundred hours.’</p><p>‘In here?’</p><p>He nodded, then stood up and pointed at the door, signalling that it was time for her to leave.. </p><p>The rest of the day was mostly back to normal. The Captain was still absent, except for his daily run. She reassured Pat that he hadn’t brought on an apocalypse, and his message had actually helped resolve things (he grinned and walked away happily. Alison supposed that resolving conflicts brought back memories of being a Scout leader, and he probably viewed the other ghosts as naughty Scouts. To be fair, they sort-of were…)</p><p>When she met the Captain again, he had a few more things to add.</p><p>He wanted subtitles on the TV, because sometimes he couldn’t understand what they were saying. Alison decided this could be due to troubles auditory processing, and had a look around. She could always get subtitles on BBC iPlayer, but their TV wasn’t smart enough for that. Eventually, she decided to buy DVDs with different language options, or foreign films, because they always had English subtitles. The Captain was very happy with this solution, and offered to make a list of 40’s films he’d have liked to see while in France (whether he had been there for army or holiday, Alison had no idea.)</p><p>The Captain wanted Pat to tell people to slow down when they were giving instructions, or when people were talking too fast. This was easily manageable - the lovely person that was Pat was always happy to oblige, especially when making things easier for others. </p><p>He didn’t like kissing sounds, but couldn’t bear to miss the Film Club. To avoid this, they worked out a system whereby Alison would go over films to see when there were kissing scenes, and give the exact lines before and after so the Captain could put his fingers in his ears when they were watching together. This had the double bonus of pleasing prudish Edwardian Lady B and getting Kitty even more excited about terrible romantic films.</p><p>He really didn’t like garish colours, and spelling mistakes annoyed him. This pleased both of them because it gave Alison a legitimate reason to hide some of the more disgusting furniture and to throw away Mike’s weird off-brand T-shirts.</p><p> </p><p>When Christmas rolled around, Alison bought special ‘sensory lights’, which changed colour from deep blue to a lovely green. They worked much better than last year’s, and actually passed the safety test this time (avoiding many unpleasant burning smells and random power surges).</p><p>Whether the other ghosts knew this was for the Captain’s benefit, nobody could tell. What was clear was that most ghosts liked these changes - although Robin did not want subtitles on, ever, and Julian did not want to watch foreign films, ever. (Unless they were really problematic.)</p><p>Foreign language films introduced the ghosts to ‘Amelie’ - Kitty and Thomas loved the soundtrack, which led to an Amelie CD that had the bonus of containing a few 40’s jazz songs. </p><p>Pat’s leadership skills were put into practice, and while there was never a real sense of urgency, the ghosts did learn to talk one at a time and not so quickly.</p><p> </p><p>Button House had settled into a new routine. Alison hoped one day the Captain would ask her further about these things and why he needed them, or discuss it with the other ghosts, but she knew it was for him to decide. And that worked fine for everyone. 

Her and Mike had come leaps and bounds in their morse code practice. They decided to edit the system, so that ghosts could transmit messages too. They said the dots and dashes out loud instead of tapping. It sounded ridiculous but it worked.</p><p>Alison never did mention the ‘a-word’, but she did enforce an absolute ban on any Film Club requests for 'Rain man', or use of problematic words such as ‘looney-bin’, ‘spastic’ and ‘retard'.</p><p>One day, Pat noticed Alison telling Julian off on his way to the living room. </p><p>'dash-dot-dash-dash   dot-dot-dot-dot   dot-dash   dash   -   dot-dot-dot-dot   dot   -   dot-dot-dot   dot-dash   dash-dot-dash-dash? ' </p><p>Pat asked Alison as they walked through the door. When he got there, he noticed the Captain, who'd been there for the whole telling-off and looked rather upset.</p><p>'dot-dot   -   dot-dash   dash-dash   -  dot-dash   -    dot-dash-dot   dot   dash   dot-dash   dot-dash-dot   dash-dot-dot.' </p><p>The Captain said. He sniffed a bit. Pat immediately guessed what must have happened, and resolved to kill Julian all over again once he'd dealt with this.</p><p>Pat sat down on the sofa, next to Alison.</p><p>'No you're not. And I'll tell you why.'</p><p>He said, before Alison could even offer an explanation.</p><p>'One of my Scouts, little Martin, was an autist. Is that the word, Alison?'</p><p>She shook her head. She'd read that the term 'autist', as well as saying someone 'has autism', were not liked by the autistic community.</p><p>'Autistic, then. Anyway, the other kids picked on him, calling him That Word, because he didn't like group activities and was obsessed with flying. I mean, he talked about nothing else. And he was proper rubbish at word games. But he made the best knots I'd ever seen, and he was kind, too. </p><p>'Once, I saw him do a drawing of a dog during the art activity. He was scared of dogs, so I asked him why. He said he'd heard Jimmy's dog had been run over so he was giving Jimmy this picture as a present to cheer him up.</p><p>'None of the other kids even cared, except for little Martin. I'll never forget him. He's probably in his late 30's, now. I bet you anything he's a pilot for a proper airline, while the mean kids are all working in a grotty corner shop or something.</p><p>'Anyway, you can bet I'll give Julian the telling off of a lifetime, and anyone else who uses That Word.'</p><p>Alison felt so proud, and happy, too. Pat was true to his word, and the other ghosts got to see him at his angriest. It was like watching a friendly sweet-shop man stop a pervert stealing a kid's sweets, or something like that. Julian was quite embarrassed and the other ghosts found a new respect for the Scout leader.</p><p>In the end, the Captain did ask, and Alison was happy to tell him. She printed out newsletters from the National Autistic Society, and bought Chris Packham's autobiography. It definitely wasn't the catastrophe she'd imagined.</p><p>Pat was curious, so they Googled 'Martin Crieff pilot'. He had indeed become a pilot - a Captain, in fact.</p><p>He looked very happy in the website photographs, and Pat was, too. Next time Alison booked a flight, she resolved to fly with MJN Air.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>So, I realised I didn't make it clear - Yasmin is Minnie. Minnie is short for Yasmin in this case at least :) </p><p>Did you spot the Cabin Pressure reference? Martin seems like exactly the sort of person who would be excellent at knots, rubbish at Scouts and afraid of dogs. </p><p>Comment the chapter title and morse code messages when you've worked them out!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>